<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>wash away our sins by sanriojess</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24369562">wash away our sins</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanriojess/pseuds/sanriojess'>sanriojess</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Crying, F/M, Love, Michael Langdon Deserves Better, One Shot, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Reader-Insert, Sad Michael, Short One Shot, The Author Regrets Everything, Unhealthy Relationships, breaking up, just heartbreak basically, michael is abandoned yet again, saying goodbye</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 11:13:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,069</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24369562</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanriojess/pseuds/sanriojess</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael begs you not to leave. You wish you didn’t have to.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Michael Langdon &amp; Reader, Michael Langdon &amp; You, Michael Langdon/Reader, Michael Langdon/You</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>wash away our sins</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Please don’t leave me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The first time he said those words, they were laced in anger—pure, fiery rage, the type that you had seen when he had burnt souls and killed and been anyone but the Michael you had fallen in love with. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could have used his magic to keep you with him, but you had long established he owed you the gift of free will, of your own mind, even if it was the one that rejected him. You would never have stayed if he had taken her freedom—would never have stayed for </span>
  <em>
    <span>him. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The problem with freedom, he had told you. was that you could choose not to stay anyway. In every way, he could lose you, and that was the dilemma. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was easy to remember the days those words would mean nothing when you uttered them to him; envied those days of humour for the belief you had had that they would never fade away. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His fury was as unpredictable as the wind, but you had learnt to let yourself risk being blown away. In all of your trials and tribulations, you had let herself believe that he wouldn’t have raised a hand against you— if that made you a </span>
  <em>
    <span>fool </span>
  </em>
  <span>for having faith in the man you had loved, you were proud of your stupidity. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>You could imagine, even, that you knew more than himself about his inabilities to hurt you. After all, you had seen him send so many to face their purgatory, had seen the raw pleasure and need whenever his hands had been coated in blood, had bathed him clean of it all. It had been your choice to stay to keep him grounded—but you were his only humanity, and he had learned how to balance you with his demons.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You were the Persephone in this great underworld he had built. The pomegranate? In your tale, you had eaten every seed and begged for more until the guilt had made itself known. His claim on you had been every part your choice, and you had laid your own on this Hades. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If you hadn't seen his tenderness, you would have considered yourself disposable. Above it all, he had made you Queen, whether you ruled over people, or ashes and dust. That was his gift to her, so elegantly carried out so that she would always find herself with him—the King of it all, of everything and nothing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The second time he had said his words, the wine glass in your hands had shattered, making him flinch just as much as you. He had mirrored the lack of control over his powers in a whisper—voice shaking, weak, yet not quite begging. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t leave me...y/n...please.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was hard to speak up when he looked every inch the boy you had met once. He had allowed you to watch as he unfolded, bloomed like some flower destined to grow poison. Michael Langdon has grown from the space of a boy to a man in the years of your relationship, even a monster. Was he proud of it? You couldn’t imagine the mindset of such a creature, even if you had become so accustomed to him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The only part of him you could see </span>
  <em>
    <span>truly </span>
  </em>
  <span>needed you was the boy in his past, and you needed him just the same. Your problem, of course, had been that he was not there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Softening at his words, pleas for you to stay—with him, as you had intended to forever—you stopped gathering your things, dumping the bag you had slung across your shoulder on the floor. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The idea of leaving had always been a fleeting thought, easily dismissed. It had come with guilt, and you had always tried to forget about it and bombard the thoughts with distractions, with sex and food and him. When you had finally been unable to leave the idea alone, you knew it was a possibility. Leaving him, until the disasters he had planned for so long finally came to fruition. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If the world ended, and he was no longer there, you had no desire to live. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Your silence was all too telling as he continued to spur out half delirious words, tears on his face that you had barely ever seen before. As time passed with none of your own words, he retreated further and further, fixing you with a gaze that spoke of daydreams and sorrow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Michael has once told you he was past begging, but it obviously wasn’t true. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he reached out and closed the gap between you both—one you realised you had made smaller absentmindedly—it was his hands that touched you, clasping around your own. These were the strong hands you had practically committed to memory, ones that, even now, you clutched onto, reacting of your own accord and begging that he would never let go. In some ways, he had all the control, and in others, she had never lost it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leaning in to kiss your cheek, your head, your neck, your nose—he muttered your name as he went, a blessing he gave entirely to you. It was his mantra, his want. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you. I love you. I love you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He mixed the two, blending them in a heady mix until you were lost in his whispers and his touch, whimpering slightly through his show of affection. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>You wanted desperately to say it back, but the words were a tether between you both, one he was so very aware of. It was the truth you were too afraid to admit, even though you had so many times before—it had been so hard to decide your departure, hard enough to want to act on it. It was easy to hope that you were gaining your freedom by leaving, but perhaps it was the opposite. Maybe, you were just locking yourself out of this strange world you had discovered, his world that he had created in her name. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His sins were your sins, and they always would be, but you could always try to wash yourself anew. He never could, even with you by his side; something he had told you was the best feeling in the world, his purpose, his key. You would always be a bystander to his atrocities, and eventually, an inspiration. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Michael.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Expecting his name to hurt, to cut your throat like glass, it was a surprise for it to feel soft. Strong. Devoid of the pain you had tried to push away and had let rise to the surface—or of the desperation he had been vulnerable enough to show her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>You knew it was the moment to reconsider, but you didn’t want to think, about regret or memories or chasing perfection. Perfection had always been out of your reach the moment you had found love in its stead. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I love you. </span>
  </em>
  <span>You hoped he could hear it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had kissed you once as if he was so sure he knew you, so sure you would reciprocate. His confidence had been one of the first things that had drawn you to him, and had been the thing that had kept you going. The promise that he would keep you safe with utter certainty had kept you sane, and you had liked his devotion, centered entirely around you. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Devotion was only another reason for the bodies that had started to pile behind him. The childish side of him had hoped you would be happy that he had given up so much for you—but, of course, he had never given up anything. Whether the murder was in her name or Satan’s, it was all the same. Killing was easy for the man who had been made for the purpose, and unfortunately for everyone else, love was just as easy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It hurt in a way you couldn’t describe when you saw his smile, so sure you had given up your fight, that you were somewhere he couldn’t lose you. You knew he had lost so many others: or, rather, that they had lost him, given up. Because of them, you supposed, he had found you, and you had been left to deal with the consequences. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even as you tried to make him see, he never quite realised the extent of the blood he had spilled, how it had ruined every single one of your dreams.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you..</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Your mantra was one you had so desperately tried to abscond. You had prayed to the god he had opposed that you could wake up free of every emotion that he had invoked in you—but the divine had ignored your request. Every morning was still, ultimately, the same: you craved his touch, always his, and he was so willing to oblige. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Had you known how it would end, you would have savoured every single sin, every single second of every day that you were willing to put up with the pain and the pleasure of being in love. You would have tried to let yourself treasure it all. </span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>You wanted to stay. Maybe every person that had left him in the end had too, had wanted to teach him just as much as you. If any of you had been stronger, had been anything but human, you could have succeeded. He could have been different. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The pain was in adding to it all, in leaving him with the rage he had been so willing to wield as a weapon against the world. He had hidden that rage for you, and, in turn, let it fester with desire.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t leave me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span> He had been cursed so cruelly by the very being that had made him. Whether he was the one to hurt the people he loved, or they would hurt him, it was always the same. His every relationship had been built on need, and it had ended in the same way—in their case, as almost every love story did. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His grip on you spoke volumes of everything. It spoke everything you had been too afraid to say, that you had withheld in selfishness and the belief that it would protect you from yourself. Your own weapon had been him, had always been him, and in turn, you were his. You could turn yourselves against each other and still, always, need more. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The world could end before he would lose you, but it would have ended anyway. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Your honesty had been enough to stop him, for him to let you slip out of his hold as gently as you could. It wasn’t something you wanted to realise until you were gone, until it was over—that his kisses had been the last, that his words had been the last, that your nights had all been counting down to this end. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was you who was the villain. Who was weak. You tried to acknowledge it as you walked out the door, sparing yourself a last goodbye, burying it all in whatever hate you could muster for yourself. It wasn’t until you were halfway through the drive, night air greeting your skin, that you turned back around. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When you opened the door again, he showed no surprise. He didn’t move from the floor, hand outstretched as if it would still be able to find your own—you hoped he could feel your imprint just as he could feel yours, that it would be a lasting reminder. That you would both still be there, in some way. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His eyes were the bluest you had ever seen them, and you knew, all too late: the boy you had waited for, had hoped would come back, finally had. You had just chosen to let him go—just as you thought he had so long ago, to make way for a stronger man. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>You didn’t need a goodbye. He didn’t need an explanation. It would always be you, whether apart or not, and the memories in your heads would carry you both on forever; even when the bombs fell, and the rubble cleared for only </span>
  <em>
    <span>one </span>
  </em>
  <span>throne. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The last time you saw Michael Langdon, he had been alone. It seemed, perhaps, he always would be. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>This is what is destined for people like us. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>We don’t deserve each other. </span>
  </em>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>